


Where We Love is Home

by leeraiii



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Carlos and Cecil are Dorks, Carlos is a Good Boyfriend, Cecil Is a Good Boyfriend, Domestic Fluff, M/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, my attempt at it anyway, who like to flirt a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-08
Updated: 2014-10-08
Packaged: 2018-02-20 08:09:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2421416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leeraiii/pseuds/leeraiii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Now, this isn't one of my half-baked conspiracy theories or anything... but Carlos, I really think you're good for him. Like, I know you aren’t from around here and I still suspect you of being a super-secret operative-”</p><p>At this, Carlos fights a hard battle not to let his eyebrows skyrocket away from his forehead in bewilderment.</p><p>“- of what agency, that I don’t know,” Steve continues. “But the point is that you make Cecil happy, Carlos. And I mean, really really happy."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where We Love is Home

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [queenofthecute](http://queenofthecute.tumblr.com/)’s [post](http://queenofthecute.tumblr.com/post/96336631523/on-mobile-so-no-cuts-but-wtnv-spoilers-below) but the fic sort of ran away from me because Cecil and Carlos talk and flirt too much lmfao
> 
> also i have no idea why this is in the present tense but that’s how it wanted to be written even tho im shit with my tenses ha ha im so sorry pls beta this poor thing
> 
> but other than that pls enjoy and tell me what you think!!!

“Well, I think your butt is nice.”

Cecil decides then and there that his fifth cup of coffee for the day would make pretty decent projectile fluid to shoot out of his mouth. Luckily, he doesn’t spray it all over Carlos’ Kitchen Labcoat (Cecil’s pretty sure it’s just an apron with a charming pineapple and tomato print but Cecil isn’t a professional Scientist like Carlos is so he really isn’t in the place to say what is and what isn’t a labcoat).

Cecil can’t say the same for his shoes however.

“Excuse me?” he croaks, dabbing his chin with a napkin he nabs off the counter where Carlos is dutifully cooking them a meal.

“Uh,” Carlos says to his coffee-soaked sneakers, “I hope that comes off.”

“Well, with the proper incantations and a few grams of elf blood, it should.”

“Uhh, noted.”

“Sooo,” Cecil drawls after they fall silent for a few seconds, walking two fingers across the counter towards Carlos before stealthily wrapping that arm around his boyfriend’s waist. “What were you saying earlier? About my… ah, my butt?”

Carlos eyes him dubiously but nonetheless continues to babysit his vegetables. “That it’s very nice? You have a nice butt, Cecil.”

“Hnn,” Cecil grunts, taking a small sip out of his coffee and being extra careful to let it go down the right pipe this time. “Why do you use the word  _‘butt’_  though, Carlos?”

Carlos blinks, turning wide confused eyes at the radio host. “What word would I have used? Bottom? Backside? Rump? Rear?”

“Oh, you know,” Cecil waves the hand holding the cup of coffee around to show that he’s currently looking for an apt word. “Ass?”

Scrunching his nose up in a way that makes Cecil want to kiss it Carlos echoes, “Ass?”

“What? Ass is a perfectly acceptable synonym.”

Carlos’ nose scrunches up even more.

“Do you think it’s too crass?”

Carlos turns away and pouts at the vegetables he’s stir frying, obviously considering the question. “No,” he says after a while. “I don’t think so.”

“I personally think that  _‘ass’_  sounds sexier than  _‘butt’_.”

“That may be so but  _‘Butt’_  has an even number of letters, so it should sound better.” Carlos follows Cecil’s example and waves a spatula around to further articulate his thought processes. “Ass is too… meh. There’s no symmetry to it.”

It is silent for a moment but then Cecil eventually cuts through it with, “I guess you could say that _‘Ass’_ is  _‘ass-symmetrical’_.” And he leans back as if receiving a congratulatory shoulder pat for a pun well executed.

Carlos merely looks on unimpressed as the kitchen falls silent again until the stir fry makes a very disgruntled and offended gurgle.

“Same.” Carlos deadpans to the pot.

“I hate you sometimes.” Cecil sniffs.

“N’aww. But I love you very very much, Cecil.” Carlos says with the best kicked-puppy expression he can muster. “And if my limbs weren’t trapped to my sides right now I would have made a big sweeping hand gesture to show you just how much.”

“OK.” Cecil blushes a really lovely shade of red if Carlos can say so himself. “Okay. Okay, I love you again. Can we take this to the bedroom?”

“Cecil Gershwin Palmer,” Carlos turns to him with a playful glint in his eyes, “are you propositioning me?”

“Carlos!” Cecil fake gasps, a hand flying to his face in faux offence. “I was merely implying a simple innocent breakfast in bed!”

“It’s lunch time.”

“You heathen!”

Carlos snorts but presses a quick kiss to Cecil’s cheek nonetheless. “I’m almost done with this. Do you want to eat it here or do you want me to pack it for you?”

Cecil steps away, allowing Carlos to pet the pepper mill until it stops barking at him so he can season the dish one more time. He glances at the watch Carlos gave him for their one month anniversary and tries hard to mask his disappointment. “I have to go to the station soon.”

“That’s fine. I can take you to that new place that opened up next to the bowling alley for dinner.” He turns around. “That is, if you want to.”

Cecil’s dejected expression immediately lights up and he bounces in place. “Yes, of course Carlos! That would be wonderful! I can finally wear those new pants I just got which accentuates my butt.”

“… which is very nice.” Carlos adds as he hands Cecil his packed lunch.

“Hm, yes, quite nice.” Cecil says and it’s unclear if he’s still talking about his posterior when he’s gazing down at the scientist like that.

“Mister Palmer,” Carlos’ voice breaks through his Carlos-induced stupor. “You’re going to be late if you don’t get out of the house at approximately 6 seconds.”

“Right! I’ll… I’ll see you at dinner then?”

Carlos wiggles his thick eyebrows, “Hopefully earlier than that if you’re going to be changing into something else tonight.”

“Oh, right. The pants.”

“Hmmmm.”

“Okay. Right. I should- I should uhh,” Cecil makes his way to the front door, Carlos trailing behind him (who is definitely not eyeing the bootie, c’mon, give the man credit). “Actually, I think I can stay behind for a few more minutes. Intern Maureen can ready the equipment for-”

“Cecil,” Carlos says before he pulls the radio host close for a kiss. When they break apart he grins and whispers “Get out” against Cecil’s lips.

Cecil scrambles down the steps and towards Carlos’ Hybrid Coupe. “Do you mind if I take your car?”

“Nope! I’ll see you later!”

“I’ll see you too, dearest Carlos. Thanks for the lunch!” Cecil lifts the aforementioned paper bag with a wide grin on his face before unlocking the car and getting in. The car is pulling away from the driveway when the door of the house right next to them opens and Steve Carlsberg comes wandering out, gazing at the coupe tearing out onto the highway.

Carlos briefly wonders if Cecil has used up his _Stop Sign Immunity_  for the month but doesn’t get to finish his math when Steve says, “I’ve never seen him so chipper before.”

Carlos turns and waves at their neighbor. Carlos likes Steve. He’s a pretty decent guy when you get past his conspiracy theories and the awful upkeep of his car. “Excuse me?”

“You know,” Steve gestures to the general direction of where Cecil disappeared to. “Cecil used to be always busy with the station. At least, that’s what he always says when we invite him to dinner and he always turns it down. And he’s generally so brooding and he goes on and on about the uncertainty of existence and his community calendars and sponsor ads and-“

“And?”

“And I don’t know if you’ve noticed but he used to be so monotone and he only ever reports whatever he’s told to by the City Council or by the Secret Police but a few months? Years? Days? Minutes? I don’t know. Time is funny here. But a few uncertain measurements of time ago he went against authority, often inserted hidden codes into his editorials, went off script to gush about a certain someone often.”

Carlos was well acquainted with that certain someone.

“And then he started noticing and questioning stuff like the lights on the sky that I thought only  ** _I_**  could see and he started going out more and smiling more and wearing his fancy outfits more and it looks like he cut back on the drinking. And he visits Janice and my wife _-his sister-_ a lot more and-”

Steve seems to have noticed that he was rambling so he shakes his head and looks at Carlos. “Now, this isn’t one of my half-baked conspiracy theories or anything and I’m sure I’ve got this 100% right but Carlos, I really think you’re good for him. Like, I know you aren’t from around here and I still suspect you of being a super-secret operative-”

At this, Carlos fights a hard battle not to let his eyebrows skyrocket away from his forehead in bewilderment.

“- of what agency, that I don’t know,” Steve continues. “But the point is that you make him happy, Carlos. And I mean, really really happy. You go on and on about how great existence is and you run off to explore the recent Night Vale anomaly that’s popped up for the day when Cecil would have been contented to get a slip of paper that says what it is and what it’s not and accept it with no questions asked. “

“Well, if I’d lived here for as long as Cecil has I bet pterodactyls that appear from portals and highjack PTA meetings would sound mundane after a while.” Carlos offers.

Steve shakes his head. “That isn’t my point. I was just trying to emphasize how different you two are but still manage to get along so well.”

“Cecil and I have so much more in common than you may think, Steve.” Carlos says, tilting his head. “We’re both very dedicated to our jobs to the point of risking our well-beings. I get scared when Cecil doesn’t think about the consequences of his actions before he does or says something, like that time with the subway.

"He also thinks I’m much of a  _‘do now, think and die later’_  type of guy no matter how many times I say that thinking is an integral part of being a scientist and that I always think.” Carlos smiles wistfully. “So we both understand how it feels when there’s a likelihood the other might not come through the door one more time and we try… I guess, in our own way, to make sure that doesn’t happen.

“And for the record, Cecil makes me happy, too! A happiness I can’t possibly be able to quantify or measure in a scale or graph or describe even! However, I might be able to invent a Happy Meter out of scratch! In fact, with probably just a few tweaks to the Danger Meter’s feature selection- like maybe I could feed it more training sets that give higher points to ‘Heart-melting Happiness’ rather than ‘Existential Dread’ I-"

Steve clears his throat.

“Right.” Carlos grimaces at the interruption with an entitled little sniff at the air in front of him. If Steve doesn’t want to listen to science then so be it. It’s a good thing he likes talking about Cecil because Cecil is just as exciting and exhilarating as science.

“What I was saying was Cecil keeps me grounded and reminds me that there are things more important than science and that science will still be there after I rest or eat dinner.”

Carlos looks at Steve with crystal clear eyes and a smile that could put Sendhil Ramamurthy’s to shame. “Cecil reminds me that my life is not just my own anymore. I am in no way implying that he can boss me around or tell me what to do but he’s more like… he’s a … a phone call that tells me to be more careful because if something did happen to me he’d be pretty devastated as well. And I don’t want that to happen again. I don’t want to hurt Cecil. So I tell him a scientist is always fine even if it sometimes doesn’t help unless of course when it does. But Cecil almost always knows when I’m not fine in that Cecil-way of his and I appreciate that.

“I can’t remember much of my life before I arrived in Night Vale. Or if I’d even truly felt that I rightfully belonged to a place or when the last time my existence ever meant this much to a person the way it means to Cecil before. That night at the bowling alley a few years ago made me realize that and in a weird morbid way I’m kind of grateful for that incident, because it opened my eyes to a happiness that was right before me.

“Granted, our relationship got a bit wobbly after those first few months but we talked and we compromised and here we are now, happy as we can be in a home we can share with our pet cat who sometimes gives me breathing problems. But that’s okay because I’m happy. Also because of the Claritin that Cecil remembers to get when he passes by the Ralph’s every week.”

Steve smiles back at him with what suspiciously looks like water in his eyes. “Maybe you should be saying these things to Cecil instead, Carlos.”

Carlos shakes his head. “Oh, Cecil knows.” He says simply because Carlos knows he may not say it out loud that he loves Cecil much but he likes to think that Cecil sees it through the meals he carefully makes for him or the sleepy teasing they exchange during the late hours of the night when they can’t sleep because the walls are oozing black goo from the sides again or how Carlos doesn’t scold Khoshekh (much) when he sheds cat hair all over Carlos’ labcoats.

“I’m sure he does,” Steve says as he makes his way back to his house, casually waving a goodbye over his shoulder, “If he’s smiling so much, I’m very sure he knows he means just as much to you as you to him. Just make sure you take care of him for us, alright?”

“Of course, Steve.” Carlos says to Steve’s retreating back, “Cecil is my boyfriend.”

When Steve disappears into the house Carlos grins and says,

“Cecil is home.”


End file.
